


just teeth

by typervoxilations



Series: draw a monster (why is it a monster?) [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, Deity!Corvo, F/M, Human!Outsider, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, demigod!Emily, relationship if you squint, self-indugent fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8648407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typervoxilations/pseuds/typervoxilations
Summary: “You’ve never told me your name.”“Neither have you.”(In which Corvo is a god, and the Outsider is not, but they make it work, in the end)





	

_I am a different person to different people. Annoying to one. Talented to another. Quiet to a few. Unknown to a lot. But who am I, to me?_  
— **dream-jackson**

* * *

If his name is ever spoken aloud, it is in reverent undertones.

 

It is not really his name, but after a while, it becomes his only name - _Lord Protector,_ they murmur under their breaths in front of small shrines of scrap metal beams and interlocking gears. _Lord of death, of punishment, of the unfortunate, of vermin and witchcraft,_ lips pressed to the back of their hands muttering prayers as if the more fervently they try to seek his attention with damp, desperate words against man-inked skin, the more likely he will give it.

 

 _Corvo,_ Jessamine had called him, the only human he had gifted his true name - but he does not use it anymore, when he remembers how it is the last thing whispered past bloodstained lips as his hand closes around her heart and her pulse falters, falls flat. He saves it in the end, the traitorous organ, preserves it selfishly to hear her voice still, now that it cannot lie to him, and believe that she might have even truly loved him once the way he had loved her.

 

 _Father,_ Emily uses, smiles the way Jessamine used to, and he is torn between wishing that she were either fully human or child of the Void, because instead she is a daughter of both worlds and he is afraid he has burdened her with a future of misery with his favoritism and greed, and of every living being he knows she deserve it the least. When she is old enough, he gifts her the Heart - that she would have at least one thing that belongs to her mother, that Jessamine will whisper her secrets and comfort her where he cannot; that it be a reminder and a warning and a guide to the fickle nature of mortals.

 

He was-

 

( A man. An idea. A god? )

 

He _is._

 

A man once, he thinks, vague memories of a dying city lingering in the general area of his memories of his life Before. Even Before, death and misfortune and punishment and vermin and witchcraft were things he was associated with, and perhaps that is why he is who he is. But Before doesn’t matter as much as After, and _After,_ he had been remade in the Void.

 

( There was someone who had killed him when he was still a man. When he is remade, he repays the favor, the act of a petty mortal. He knows better now, is more responsible with the gift the Void has given him. Has to be. It is easier to be a god when one is a distant god. )

 

( He remembers of Jessamine and thinks, _well, in theory, anyways._ )

 

His is secret belief - the kind which is the worst kept, and that is protection, in and of itself. 

 

He is the whispers behind closed doors, cupped hands, tight masks. His faithful do not proudly bear his colors as they walk among others, and flinch away from white-masked clergymen of the Abbey who brandish more popular doctrines with (admittedly) admirable but (often) exasperating passion, who use his not-name and call him false in the same breath.

 

But for every shrine they tear down, black drapes torn and trampled underfoot as they cart away what remains, numerous more take its’ place: luminous whale-oil casting strange, living shadows stretching from whatever trinket his believers leave in hopes he will take notice - misshapen pearls the size of children’s fists pried from river krusts planted in the muddy shallows of sluggish rivers slithering beneath cobblestone bridges, smoothed rats’ teeth bleached to lustrous ivory and honed to wicked keenness and strung together with polished wire, masks of every shape and size and material with black-glass eyes and skeletal jaw crafted from iron wire.

 

For every punishment endured for the devotion the Abbey believes is misplaced, he rewards - never anything flashy, never obvious, because he is not an extravagant god but neither is he a cruel one.

 

At least, he’d like to think so - but his believers remember that once, the clergymen had tempted his wrath so greatly that he had flooded their houses of worship with rats vicious with hunger and desperation, had expressed his fury by physically appearing and leaving behind white-masked men with rattled minds in his wake; the Abbey had insisted it was an isolated accident, that there is no way a false god who doesn't exist could have caused such chaos, but his believers knew better and the Abbey is warier of him, after that.

 

( After that, he keeps Emily closer, and does not make the mistake of trusting any human with their secret ever again. )

 

And then.

 

Then there was the boy.

 

The boy - because it is no more than a boy - is not much older than his Emily, is not the usual type to approach his shrine. The boy does not pray, stands watching the lights play off the sharpened points of the handful of crossbows scattered across the dark navy silk draped over the alter, and that is why he takes notice.

 

“What is your name?” He asks.

 

“I don’t have one.” The boy smiles at him, does not react in surprise to his sudden presence, but it doesn’t reach his dark, dark eyes. They are the eyes of an old soul, far too old on his young face.

 

“Where are you from?”

 

“Somewhere. I wouldn’t know, they tell me I'm an outsider.” He says the word 'outsider' as if it is new to him, a word in a different language recently learned - learned, but not understood. 

 

“Why are you here then, little outsider?”

 

“The city has many secrets.” The boy murmurs, as if that were the answer to everything, and neither of them has moved. “Are you a spirit?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Are you a god?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

There is something else in the boy's face, curiosity untainted by greed, and perhaps that is why he stays - to watch this boy do nothing but admire the shrine in silence. 

 

( He is the first to not ask him for anything, and perhaps, that is why it is the beginning of the end. )

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I just wanted to write more fics with my headcanons for deity!Corvo, since my first one was disgustingly short. Now with demigod!Emily and (briefly) human!Outsider. The insinuation in the Jessamine/Corvo bit is that she seduces him - For bragging rights? For a demigod child? No one will ever know - and he is not pleased once he finds out. I DON’T HATE JESSAMINE OKAY, but this was also heavily influenced by my experiences with Greek mythology and well… We all know what happens there. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ This isn't quite reverse meetings, but more of the lonely rat boy story, hopefully sans the angsty ending :C


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